Is 50.5-9a; Ps 114 (116); Jas 2.14-18; Mk 8: 27-35

“Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith with my works,” says James. If faith does not depend on our works, but on the relationship we weave with the Lord, it is still called to embody itself in concrete gestures that reveal its authenticity. A fundamental work of faith is following Jesus along his Easter journey. A journey in which Peter is tempted to interpose himself as a “scandal”, a stumbling block. In his words speaks Satan, the devil, the one who divides. He tries to separate Jesus from his historical path. Indeed, Satan does not care so much that Peter confesses his faith, recognizing the identity of Jesus. What he wants is that men will follow him on the path of the Cross, and that they recognize the mystery of God revealing himself in the face of the suffering servant whose Isaiah speaks to us today. The Cross is in fact the form of an overturned power, the icon of a love that humbles itself, that empties itself, that enters the silence of death and accepts self-annihilation, to fill this void with a love stronger than evil. and of sin. It is this way of being of God that defeats Satan, because it represents the more radical antithesis of him than him. The love of the Crucified One forgives, reconciles, re-establishes communion, whereas Satan is instead the dia-bolos, the one who throws separation, division, discord.

Commentary by Comunità di Dumenza

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey